Galactic Civilisations 2

[The_Doctor]

It took my a few days, but I am now getting into it.

I like it so far.

[frogbeastegg]

:sighs in a resigned manner, and sets out to order a copy, muttering furiously all the while that she does not have time and really should ignore this!: But it sounds so good ...

Curse you all! Curse you!

[Reverend Joe]

Wow... this might be my first new game in a long time, not to mention how long it's been since I got a really good one. (Years.)

[GoreBag]

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This game sounds awesome. Why do they do this to me? Is it for mac as well?

I think there is a version for the Mac; I haven't checked, but I've seen posts in the forum about it.

Lemur, have you tried patching it? There have been two patches already, and they improve a few of the performance issues.

[frogbeastegg]

The Paradox version of the game (the one in shops in Europe) is a very nice production. I'm impressed. The DVD case is metal, yet still manages to be slimmer than a normal case. The manual is highly glossy, well bound, and actually mostly useful ... for a modern games manual. The tech tree does disappoint though, and lets down the package - it doesn't tell you what any of the techs do! Gah! Confused amphibian ahoy.

Installation, now there is another question entirely. Trouble. Not excessive trouble, but still enough to leave me cursing. It took so long for the installer to load I thought it had crashed or my CD was a dud; Windows itself reported the program as not responding. Good thing I come from the "Gah! If it doesn't work the first two times, and if it keeps on crashing, just try again with liberal inventive cursing and leave the PC alone for five minutes to see if it decides to cooperate!" school of computing. Or I'd have taken it back to the shop for a new copy.

A tip for anyone else getting the Paradox edition: The CD key on the back of the manual is not the only key you need. You have to go here, bung in your key to receive another one. This is the one you need to install and use the Stardock direct thingy and/or get patches and updates. Confusingly both are referred to as your serial number. I gather there was a slight mess up when creating the first CD keys for the Paradox version and that this is a workaround solution. :grumble:

Game finally installed and a good half hour of trying to navigate the serial number/patch/update/stardock/GAH! swamp and I booted the game up.

Like the music, very tasteful. All else follows that - the bad beginning has certainly not been followed by a poor game. I've hardly done a thing with it, yet I can see so many things I want to try. I watched the tutorials (I think I have some new ones to watch from the downloaded update ...) and they were educational, better than civ 4's at any rate. Even if they were non-interactive and still left me without a real feel for what to do at the start of my first game. No, what they did - and did well - was show me the many things I might like to do.

There are so many options! I'm impressed.

This bit from the manual I think deserves quoting:
(From the section on difficulty levels, bold is my emphasis)
Fool: AI's economy runs at 10% of normal. No higher algorithms enabled.
Beginner: AI's economy runs at 25% of normal. No higher algorithms enabled.
Sub-normal: AI's economy runs at 50% of normal. No higher algorithms enabled.
Normal: AI's economy runs at 75% of normal. AI evaluates common human tactics.
Bright: AI's economy runs at 100% of normal. Evaluates most human tactics.
Intelligent: AI's economy runs at 100% of normal. AI expertly picks abilities and all known human tactics are searched and countered.
Genius: AI's economy runs at 125% of normal. All higher algorithms in place (same as above)
Incredible: AI's economy runs at 200% of normal. All higher algorithms in place.

From what I hear of the AI it works damned well too. I wonder if it will be updated to reflect what players do? Hope so.

What do people like to do at the start of a new game? I've played all of 40 minutes this morning, and I wonder if I ignored the military side a bit too much. I didn't really know where to research first for best result, except the translator so I could understand the aliens. There are so many techs you have to research before you even get your first weapons and defences, and then there are the three different types of each. Military research looks as though it will take up a very good proportion of the research part of the game.

Away from research I scouted, found a galaxy full of class 0 planets and a small handful of class 4 -10 ones, the closer ones of which I colonised. Did a bit of tech trading. Built a couple of space stations on special resources. Built my planets up a bit, trying to keep things even between cash/research/production instead of specialised. I had created my first trade route when I had to quit to go to work.

[Vladimir]

Froggy's guides are always a pleasure to read. I might get this game after all.

[Kraxis]

Since it doesn't cost you to demolish structures I would say that it is good to build structures, then when better ones pop up you can get those going.

[TinCow]

The only three things that have seemed important to me at the beginning:

Immediately buy a factory on every new planet with no buildings and then start building another. That will get your production going.

Spam colonization ships like it's going out of style. You want to grab as many planets as you can as fast as you can.

Nab as many of the anomolies as possible. They're essentially GC2's version of Civ goodie huts.

[GoreBag]

At the beginning of the game, my best advice is not to use all of the slots on your planets right away. That's your permanent number of building slots, and you will want to build other things later. For the beginning you ought not to need more than two or three slots used up on your home planet. But once you get trade routes going, and an economic capital, you can afford to start seriously packing in the factories and research buildings.

No, they're not the permanent number of slots. As Kraxis mentioned, any building can be 'upgraded' to any other building at no additional cost (beyond the money you're pumping into social production), and additional will appear on most planets after certain technologies (Soil Enhancement, Habitat Improvement and Terraforming) have been researched and implemented.

Also, certain...things can lower a planet's quality rating, lowering the number of available 'slots'.

[GoreBag]

Now your just nitpicking. Yellow an Orange slots are still slots. You can never incrase the total number of slots.

They're not available upon to build improvements in the early game, so your point is moot.

[TinCow]

Is it ever possible to colonize a class 0 planet?

[GoreBag]

Is it ever possible to colonize a class 0 planet?

No. However, some events can take place which will change a class 0 planet to another class (usually higher than 10, in my experience), but these events are outside the player's control.

[Bob the Insane]

Beware building too many factories or your manufacturing capacity will rapidly outpace your economy and you production will have to slow to a snail's pace before you go totally broke.

I will build a factory on most worlds as speeds the building of everything else, but I will pick one (or more depending on the size of the galazy) promising planet to be the production center and built a lot of economic and research improvements elsewhere. Meanwhile I will spam ships out of my production planet...

I have beaten the game on Sub-normal and Normal so far, but Intelligent kicked my arse... :D

[Xiahou]

What do people like to do at the start of a new game? I've played all of 40 minutes this morning, and I wonder if I ignored the military side a bit too much. I didn't really know where to research first for best result, except the translator so I could understand the aliens. There are so many techs you have to research before you even get your first weapons and defences, and then there are the three different types of each. Military research looks as though it will take up a very good proportion of the research part of the game.

For me, and probably everyone else, the opening game is a mad scramble to colonize as many decent or better quality planets that you can find. I usually peg my spending rate as high as possible (usually even running a deficit week to week) and pour everything into military and research spending, shutting down social entirely at first. Depending on the situation (ie: having more colony ships than decent planets that I can find), I'll also cut military spending pretty drastically and really try to get a jump on technology. I'll often try to hit the diplomacy branch first, so I can tradeup non-vital techs to other civs as advantageously as possible.

Once it looks like all the good planets are gone, I'll re-adjust my spending and resource allocation as the situation warrants and begin to start on planetary improvements.

[GoreBag]

I just shell out money on purchasing my ships directly. I'm usually too slow anyway, though, depending on the size of the galaxy and number of opponents.

[Kraxis]

I have found that the lousy Class 4-5 planets are in fact great traps. They are like speedbumps for the enemy.
In my most recent game the enemies attacked these planets (outlying) and I thus had a good chance of intercepting them. Of course they did make a commandorun at Mars (was Human), but my garrison there just managed to keep them out.

So I will settle any and all planets I can find. The lousy productionplanets (with three slots besides the capital) I build 1 factory at, then research. That should provide me with some well needed research, and the ability to upgrade those buildings when needed. At some point I remove the factory and put another research building there.

[Butcher]

In my current game, I have been lucky to come across two class 24 planets, one's a reaserch behemoth and the other builds ships quicker than a very quick thing that's just won a being quick contest.

[Kraxis]

In my current game, I have been lucky to come across two class 24 planets, one's a reaserch behemoth and the other builds ships quicker than a very quick thing that's just won a being quick contest.

Lucky... LUCKY YOU! My best is a couple of class 12 world next to each other with lots of specialities (700% manufacturing bonus on one and 400% research on the other).

By th way, the manual doesn't say: Do those bonusses apply to the entire world? Or just the building placed in the plot?

[Zenicetus]

Bonuses only apply to that one building on the bonus slot, it's not a planet-wide effect.

I found one lvl 26 planet in my current Large map/Normal AI game, and I made a mad rush to colonize it. Just one bonus slot, on research. I'm a little worried though, 'cause it's on the outer edge of the empire on a spur of otherwise barren systems. So I parked a couple of early production fighters in orbit to discourage a quick takeover, while my population was still low.

Don't wait TOO long to get at least a token military presence, even if it's just some weak fighters here and there, parked around your border planets. If you turtle and go pure economic/research with no military, you're setting yourself up as a juicy target. The major civs basically go after whoever looks the weakest militarily, when they go into expansion mode after the initial colony rush. If you more-or-less match their military buildup, you get treated with respect and they leave you alone (for a while, anyway). Trade routes will help reduce aggression, and to a certain extent you can hold off threats with bribes, or distracting an aggressive civ by supporting its neighbors. But I wouldn't rely on that alone, without any military, until you get really good at playing the diplomatic side. I'm still learning how to do that.

[The_Doctor]

Have any of you made any cool looking starships?

If so post images of them.

My ship look pretty bad.

[phred]

Check out the Gal Civ main forums for some good ones

http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx...162&AID=104951
http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=346&AID=103958

[Kraxis]

Have any of you made any cool looking starships?

If so post images of them.

My ship look pretty bad.

Mine all end up looking like some kind of overdressed fighters. Though a few of them have been rather cool (lasers are ugly btw, missiles are way cooler).

Zinecetus, but such planets normally support huge populations, which will mean you get a massive denfesive force. That alone should protect the planet for some time.

Btw, how do you deal with the minor races?
I have found them to be great tradingpartners, both with traderoutes and tech. I have no trouble with selling all my techs to them if they have the money. It isn't as if they can do much harm to me, and they are a kind of safe fallback in times of war. And if you have been nice to them, they might even support you with money and weapons in wars (or be your allies).

Conquering them just doesn't seem to be worth it.

[Nikpalj]

Having played through MoO 2 and Birth of the Federation I intend to try this out cause I like what I've seen so far.

The problem is that I've got a PIII 1000, 128mb, GeForce 2 32mb (enough for MTW...) and I'm not sure if It'll run. I've seen the min specs and it says that it's 256mb. Can anyone confirm if it would boot up on a 128mb machine? I've tried out the,say, Dawn of War demo and it didn't work on less then 256, period.

Can you scale down the graphics in-game etc, I really don't care if it looks great (I still remember MoO 2)?

[AggonyDuck]

Well it ran decently on my system, which isn't that great, until I designed my Leviathan-super dreadnought class spaceship. It was a bit too big lol and it kinda lagged up the whole game..

[Butcher]

It runs fine on my X850

[Lehesu]

Having played through MoO 2 and Birth of the Federation I intend to try this out cause I like what I've seen so far.

The problem is that I've got a PIII 1000, 128mb, GeForce 2 32mb (enough for MTW...) and I'm not sure if It'll run. I've seen the min specs and it says that it's 256mb. Can anyone confirm if it would boot up on a 128mb machine? I've tried out the,say, Dawn of War demo and it didn't work on less then 256, period.

Can you scale down the graphics in-game etc, I really don't care if it looks great (I still remember MoO 2)?

Those are my exact specs, except I have 256 mb. There is supposed to be a demo later in March; I am going to wait and see if that works well before going out and buying the game.

[AggonyDuck]

The game sure is challenging. I'm currently playing the campaign and I've first finished two missions, but in both missions I managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

In the first mission I was down to one planet and 3 Vanguard-class frigates, but I managed to recapture one of my planets and stole plasma weaponry from the Drengins.
After that I started massproducing my Vanguard Mk II's and the tide turned and within short I had tipped the scales decisively in my favour.

Well the second mission wasn't perhaps as close in the sense that I was never really lost a planet, but I was truly getting my arse kicked due to having a lot lower military production. At worst I was down to 4 Arrow-class Heavy Fighters and although they were experienced it's still a bit too few to protect 3 planets at once.

Anyways what was surprising was that after the Drengins figured they had gotten military superiority they stopped churning out fighters and instead built a lot of transports with not many escorting fighters with them.
So I fought hard to intercept the enemy Transports with my extremely slow Arrow-class fighters and luckily I managed to intercept about 85% of them.
Also the Drengins kept trying to destroy my three extremely well protected starbases, which meant the end for a lot of fighters.

Anyways I continued churning out my Arrow-class fighters which ship for ship outclassed the Drengin ships and also brought in a new fighter class called the Barracuda that in essence was a fast and cheap scout fighter with limited weaponry. I could churn them out in a rather good rate and I used them to hunt unprotected Transports and starbases. They were extremely successful in this role and eventually I could start a massing a small taskforce of heavy fighters and transports. Due to the heavy losses that the Drengins were suffering off I eventually managed to gain space superiority for a while and I used this lull in hostilities to capture one of their planets.

I captured it with relative ease after three assaults and after that I split my Arrow heavy fighters in two taskforces and sent them to initiate a blockade of the two remaining Drengin planets. Due to the fact, that I managed to blockade the Drengin planets while their fleets were annihilated, I could destroy every new spaceship they created peacemeal and thus keep my superiority in space.

As you might guess I'm having great fun and getting a great challenge from the game. It's almost as if the AI learns, because it started to equip it's transports with shields after the losses caused by my Barracudas.
The one defiency that I can detect in the AI, is that once it believes to have destroyed my fleets in space it stops protecting it's troop transports with proper amounts of fighters. Instead it sends in lone transports and some weak escorts, that just make for good gunnery practice for my heavy fighters. At the end second mission I still had two of my experienced
Arrow-Heavy Fighters left and they were equals to Frigates in combat power, if not even better.

Anyways it's a wonderful game, if you can look past the occasional CTD..

[phred]

I'm currently playing the campaign and I've first finished two missions, but in both missions I managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Sounds like a fun campaign.
What difficulty level are you playing?

[TinCow]

Is there any way to capture starbases or at least preserve the resource that they are on? I

[frogbeastegg]

I played a little while eating my breakfast this morning. Wow! Two whole play sessions in one week! 1 1/2 hours total! I’m excelling myself! :cough: Anyway, returning to things people actually care about, I'm having some thoughts about the economy and the economy improvement buildings. I'm not sure if I am right, wrong, or something in-between - I just haven't played for long enough, and most of the games concepts remain very sketchy to me.

Ok. Planet A has 10 manufacturing points(or whatever they call them) total. This means it can put out 10 MP per turn if spending is set too 100% and then the military (and social, I think. It splits MP between both categories? Need to read that manual again ...) subcategory is set to 100%. Otherwise it does a portion of that based on total spending and the smaller percentage.

Right. Fine. Slightly odd, but it will work. Even if I’m wrong about which sliders need to be where it doesn’t matter for this.

Then you build a basic factory. This adds 8MP, for a total of 18MP. Here is my problem - that 8MP is not an always present bonus as in other games. It needs to be activated in the same way as those base 10 points. It is a raised limit, not a boosted base.

Therefore it costs more to run the same settings (say 70% spending with 50% to military) with the factory than without. The planet can put out more MP per turn, and reach a higher potential MP limit, but it costs more. Not a problem if you have a good economy, but potentially disastrous with a small one.

So perhaps building factories at the start is not a good idea? Seems like one or two maybe, but then there's not the money to really use them ... in my extremely limited experience.

Still not sure about the other structures. The economy boosters, the influence boosters, morale boosters, and all that. Hardly had chance to even look at the blurbs for them, and there are loads I haven't even seen mentioned yet.

How does the research increase building work? Same way as factories? Or does it give a base increase, like the first economy one does (can't remember the name, but it gives a 10% bonus to income).

Anyone want to tell a frog what the economic space station can do? I understand the principle and so on, but haven't had chance to do more than build a basic one with no modules at all. What kind of modules can you put on it asides from attack and defence, what effects do they have, and what techs give them? I hear these stations can somehow give a boost to nearby planet's manufacturing capabilities. Ditto influence stations; I haven’t even managed to build a basic shell of one yet. I guess military is just what you would expect from the name – a gun platform.